Certified voters’ roll

Following two rounds of registration weekends, and a sustained campaign promoting the online registration system, the voters’ roll was certified on March 12 2024.

This certification is the foundation of a credible election. The certified voters’ roll stands at 27.7 million voters. SA has not seen this level of registration since the voters’ roll was established in 1999.

Measured against the estimated voting age population, 27% of 18-19 yearolds have registered and 48.6% of 20-29 year-olds.

A total of 15.3-million voters are women and 12.4-million are men. Gauteng and KwaZuluNatal jointly account for 44% of voters in the country. Gauteng has 6.5-million voters and KwaZulu-Natal has 5.7-million voters. The Eastern Cape has third-most voters, 3.4-million.

Electronic copies of the voters’ roll with redacted identity document numbers for protection of personal information have been provided to participating contestants. This will enable them to canvass votes and also to verify the accuracy of the roll.

Voting stations

On April 12, the IEC will publish a list of all 23,292 voting stations and their locations across SA. There are 954 temporary sites where physical infrastructure is not available and temporary amenities are being procured.

With the voters’ roll now certified, the efforts now turn to ballot education — presenting the three ballots to be used in the election and what each of these represents and the eventual translation of valid votes to seats in the 10 legislative assemblies.

Special votes

Special vote applications for purposes of home visits and voting stations visits will open on April 15 and close on May 3. Special voting will be conducted on May 27 and 28.

A total of 58,000 voters have registered on the international segment of the voters’ roll. These voters will be provided for at the diplomatic missions of registration.

South Africans who are registered on the local segments of the voters’ roll but who may be temporarily absent from the country can notify the IEC of the intended absence and the mission where they intend to vote by April 22.

Currently, there are 67,000 South Africans who are going to be voting outside SA. This special voting will happen at missions about 10 days ahead of general voting in the country.

Section 24A

Voters who will be outside of the voting station of registration may notify the chief electoral officer where they will be by May 17, through physical forms at the local office of the commission or on the IEC website. A week ago, 20,000 notifications had been recorded.

Candidate nomination

The close of the nomination of candidates was on March 8. Provisionally, 70 political parties and 11 independents have submitted nominations. Fifteen political parties are contesting all tiers of the elections. In total there are more than 14, 903 candidates vying for 887 seats in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures. Disputes may marginally alter the number.

The IEC published the final list of candidates as well as the list of parties to contest the various tiers of the elections yesterday (April 10). There are 52 parties on the national compensatory ballot which means it will be configured as a dual column ballot. The other 18 other ballots will remain single column ballots. Certificates of candidature will be issued on April 12.

Ballot papers will then be printed in 19 different ballot configurations: one national compensatory ballot, nine province-to-national (regional) ballots and a further nine provincial ballots.

The IEC will print approximately 30 million ballots for each of the three ballot types. This enormous task must be completed with a 30day printing window period.

Over 95% of logistical supplies for election day are already on hand. The IEC is in the process of distributing 1,873 tonnes of material between warehousing and storage facilities across the country.

Voting staff

The IEC is appointing 202,500 voting officials to administer the electoral process in the voting stations.

The commission is instituting a new category of staff who will support the presiding officer with the counting. Three such staff are being appointed for each voting and sub-station.

— This summary is based on remarks by Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo at the national pledge signing of the Electoral Code of Conduct for NPE 2024 on April 4 2024.